Puzzle.



UNTTED STATES PATENT OEETCEQ JOSEPH LEOHNER, OF OSWEGO, NEW YORK.

PUZZLE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 676,264, dated J une 1 1, 1901.

Application led March 9, 1901. Serial No. 50,420. (No model.)

T0 all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOSEPH LECHNER, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Oswego, in the county of Oswego, in the State of New York, have invented new and useful Improvements in Puzzles, of which the following, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to a device designed to furnish an interesting and amusing puzzle which may be played by either one or more persons; and the invention consists, essentially, of a series of permanently located iigures distributed in a row or group, separate markers connected to the respective gures movably into dierent relative positions thereon, and one of said iigures bearing a predominant designation and its marker to remain undisturbed from its normal position during the disturbance of all the other markers in the order hereinafter described.

The invention is susceptible of many modiiications of its details, and I therefore do not limit myself in that respect.

In the annexed drawings, Figurel is a plan view of a puzzle embodying my invention, and Fig. 2 is a transverse section on line X X.

a a a represent a series of twenty-two permanently-located pictural figures, which in this instance are crude representations of persons heads arranged in a circular row printed or otherwise applied to a board or card A. One of said figures (shown at t') is marked predominant over the others. At each of said heads is a marker b, which is movable into diferent positions in relation to the head and is preferably of the form of a hat, Which is pivoted at c to allow said hat to be swung from the head, as indicated in dotted lines.

The puzzle is manipulated in the following manner, to wit: Before beginning to solve the puzzle the hats b b are to be placed in their normal positions over the respective heads. The task of the puzzle is to remove all the hats from the heads a ct in successive order throughout the row of heads by removing one hat at a time at the end of counting a predetermined number of consecutive heads, (which in this case is the number seven.) The counting may be begun at any one of the heads, and then, counting seven heads in regular consecutive order and in one direction along the row, the hat of the seventh head is to be removed. Then proceeding in the same manner of counting, commencing with one at the hatless head the hat of the next seventh head is to be removed. This process is continued around theroW of hats, but always omitting the counting of any intermediate hatless heads. If in this proceeding the count of seven happens to come onto the head a the player fails to solve the puzzle. When there are twenty-two heads, as represented in the annexed drawings, each of the consecutive countings in removing the hats is to be limited to seven. It is therefore obvious that there is one distinct head in the row at which the counting must be commenced in order to avoid removing the hat from the head a'. The mystery of the location of the iirst head at Which to begin the counting renders the puzzle interesting and amusing. In the present instance the starting-point is indicated by the cross which is the seventh head from ct', inclusive.

What I claim as my invention isl. A puzzle consisting of a series of permanently-located figures distributed in a row or group and one of said figures bearing a predominant designation, and separate markers connected to the respective figures movably into different relative positions thereon as and for the purpose set forth.

2. A puzzle consisting of a series of representations of persons7 heads distributed in a row or group, a hat over each of said heads pivoted to swing from the head, and one of said heads marked predominant over the remainder as and for the purpose set forth.

JOSEPH LEOHNER. ['L. s]

Witnesses:

JOHN A. WIBBE, J OHN L. LINDSMAN. 

